“My mother’s master was John Wilks and Miss Betty.  Mama’s name was Callie Wilks and papa’s name was Freeman.  Mama had seven children.  She was a field hand.  She said all on their place could do nearly anything.  They took turns cooking.  Seems like it was a week about they took milkin’, doin’ house work, field work, and she said sometimes they sewed.

“Father told my mother one day he was going to the Yankees.  She didn’t want him to go much.  He went.  They mustered out drilling one day.  He had to squat right smart.  He saw some cattle in the distance looked like army way off.  He fell dead.  They said it was heart disease.  They brought him home and some of dem stood close to him drillin’ told her that was way it happened.

“The man what owned my mother was sorter of a Yankee hisself.  We all stayed till he wound up the crop.  He sold his place and went to Collyoka on the L. and N. Railway.  He give us two and one-half bushels corn, three bushels wheat, and some meat at the very first of freedom.  When it played out we went and he give us more long as he stayed there.

“When mama left she went to a new sorter mill town and cooked there till 1869.  She carried me to a young woman to nurse for her what she nursed at Mostor Wilks befo freedom.  I stayed wid her till 1876.  I sure does remember dem dates. (laughed)

“Yes’m, I was nursin’ for Dr. Rothrock when that Ku Klux scare was all bout.  They coma to our house huntin’ a boy.  They didn’t find him.  I cover up my head when they come bout our house.  Some folks they scared nearly to death.  I bein’ in a strange place don’t know much bout what all I heard they done.

“I don’t vote.  I don’t know who to vote for, let people vote know how.

“I get bout $8 and some commodities.  It sure do help me out too.  I tell you it sure do.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Bell Williams, Forrest City, Arkansas
Age:  85

“We was owned by Master Rucker.  It seems I was about ten years old when the Civil War started.  It seems like a dream to me now.  Mother was a weaver.  They said she was a fine weaver.  She wove for all on the place and some special pieces of cloth for outsiders.  She wove woolen cloth too.  I don’t know whether they paid for the extra weaving or not.  People didn’t look on money like they do now.  They was free with one another about eating and visiting and work too when a man got behind with the work.  The fields get gone in the grass.  Sometimes they would be sick or it rained too much.  The neighbor would send all his slaves to work till they caught up and never charge a cent.  I don’t hear about people doing that way now.

“My parents was named Clinton and Billy Bell.  There was nine of us children.

“I never seen nobody sold.  Mother was darker.  Papa was light—­half white.  They didn’t talk in front of children about things and I never did know.  I’ve wondered.